Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown.

Do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.

What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.

Mama's love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before. She sat in her chair at the window and loved us. She loved the people she saw in the street-- and beyond: her love took in the city, the land of Holland, the world. And so I learned that love is larger than the walls which shut it in.

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?

And for all these people alike, the key to healing turned out to be the same. Each had a hurt he had to forgive.

Jesus did not promise to change the circumstances around us. He promised great peace and pure joy to those who would learn to believe that God actually controls all things.